Prof. Ernst Haeckel ' 39 



But if this philosophy must stand, where are we ? What 

 is left for human consolation? Well, things may not be 

 so very bad, after all. " There is no wisdom save in 

 truth." We used to be frightened by ghost stories, but 

 now people seem to be frightened when science tells them 

 that they are realities and not spooks. They seem to think 

 that life becomes too terrifically earnest when we consider 

 it so, and a flight back into some " unknowable " mys- 

 tery is sought as a relief — much as we seek shade from the 

 glare of the sun. When each Ego sees itself as the bwn- 

 ing point where the infinite world correlates into conscious- 

 ness, it naturally at first looks around for a more modest 

 and less responsible position. But, again, correlation is our 

 refuge and defense. The freedom of the will is the grate- 

 ful illusion which gives us a little world of our own, by 

 which we relieve our fatality and bring our light to bear 

 upon the great objective world, and weave our existence 

 into it as a satisfying immortal creative power. Thus, life 

 is worth living, and insures immortality by its beneficence ; 

 thus, religion and morals receive a solid, scientific founda- 

 tion. For the will, scientifically explained, becomes the 

 basis of the world of human effort — our subjective world. 



The freedom of the will results as a practical fact from 

 the law that correlations are distinct from each otlicr. The 

 will, as a faculty of the life, mind, or soul, has, and can have, 

 no consciousness of its own origin, and so is, as to itself, free. 

 As such, it acts apparent! y independently in the order of 

 affairs, and counts for much (in Prof. Huxley's phrase) " in 

 the order of events." In this way it becomes the founda- 

 tion of morals and discipline and practical life. In a simi- 

 lar way, the rising of the sun in the east founds our practi- 

 cal almanacs and daily duties ; but objectively the sun does 

 not rise at all ; so our will is disclosed by science to be a re- 

 sult of our own life and mind and the world about us. Thus 

 will, free as a correlate, becomes the base of moral relations ; 

 but all those relations are shown by science to be subject 

 to objective law, which underlies the human will just as it 

 does the " rising sun." The illusions arc explained, the 

 lights remain ! 



The objections to this monistic philosophy generally 

 come from those who fail to comprehend or to realize the 

 free-will and moral results of its fundamental laws of corre- 

 lation, and especially the fact tliat no correlate resembles its 

 antecedent correlates. Prof. Haeckel is by no means clear 



